


Waking Up Song

by tilda



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [6]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tilda/pseuds/tilda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's an early bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up Song

**Author's Note:**

> Doesn't follow canon tour schedule, and some venues are invented.

Sometimes Harry wakes up early. Really early. It used to drive him mental, mainly because it’s dead boring at 6am when no-one else is awake. 

But now he just cracks an eye to check the time, and if it’s after half-six, he closes his eyes and blindly reaches for his phone and ear-buds to drag them under the covers with him. He pops a bud in, then cracks an eye again for long enough to get the iPlayer app, and go to his favourites. And then he drifts off to whatever music’s playing, or if he’s lucky, it’ll be between songs and Nick’s voice will be in his ear straightaway. _Honestly, it was so hard gettin’ up this morning_ , Harry hears. _I was like a baby vole, my eyes all red and puffed up. So sleepy._ Harry sinks down into his pillow and smiles to himself. He dozes during the music, and comes to when Nick’s voice starts up again. 

He at least gets to have this – a guaranteed time every day when he knows he’ll be able to hear Nick’s voice. It’s almost like lying in bed in Nick’s flat and hearing him pottering around in the other room. Almost.

He usually listens to the whole show, properly sleeping through some of it, but waking up for Showquizness and banter with Coxy at the end. Sometimes he’s been tempted to ring up and be the show-reviewer, or even just text for a shout-out, but he knows it’s not an option. Sometimes he feels jealous of the other callers – the contestants, or the first one, half-asleep and star-struck at 6.45am – who get to have Nick’s attention for a few seconds or minutes. 

Then he catches himself and knows it’s stupid, because he gets to have Grimmy to himself, for hours, sometimes days at a time. He doesn’t have to share Nick with anyone – like the other listeners do – and he gets to have the real deal. Real Nick is, in some ways, completely different to Radio Nick. He’s quieter for a start. And sexier. And funnier. And kinder. He sounds warm on the radio, and he sometimes makes instant friends with people, whether celebs or callers, but Harry knows that he doesn’t love those people like he loves his friends. He’s also cleverer than he pretends and knows a lot about things that might surprise some people. It pisses him off that a lot of people think Nick’s just an idiot on the radio, and he wants to go up to them in Shoreditch House or wherever, poke them in the chest and tell them, ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Other times, he’s just happy to be in on the secret.

Of course, he misses Nick. Aches with it sometimes. But mostly it’s something he doesn’t even notice. It’s just part of his life, like one of those little cuts you get in the webbing of your fingers, or the itchy patch behind his knee, something that hurts in the background and that only drives him mental at four in the morning. One of their roadies, Steve, has tinnitus, and the way he described it to Harry sounded very much like the feeling of missing Nick. He didn’t tell Steve that – _it sounds like missing my boyfriend_ – mainly because it probably wouldn’t sound very understanding (Harry gets to see his boyfriend, but Steve’s tinnitus never goes away), but also because even though he’s pretty sure Steve would be all right about it, it probably wasn’t a good idea. The fewer people who know, the better. 

He’s glad of this. The more people who know, the harder it’d be, he reckons. He’s seen the sympathetic looks Liam or Louis get, the comments, the elbow-squeezes when they get off the phone looking particularly bleak. He can’t imagine it helps much – just rubs it in, exaggerates it even. Harry keeps this stuff to himself mostly (though a few people know) and that way it’s contained, doesn’t get too big for him to manage. 

Sometimes, once the final song’s started, after Nick’s signed off and said goodbye to the listeners, Harry’s phone rings, startling him out of a doze. He awkwardly thumbs ‘answer’ and rests the phone on his ear, so it’s balanced on the side of his head, and he curls up and closes his eyes again.

‘Were you listening?’ he hears. Nick’s voice is low and confidential.

‘Listening to what?’ Harry says, unable to stop the smile creeping into his voice.

‘You’re a rubbish liar. You’ll never be able to have an affair, you know. What time were you listening from?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Harry, trying for airy. ‘I slept through most of it.’

‘That’ll be 6.30 then,’ Nick says. ‘You want to be careful, Styles. Can’t have you performing with a full set of Louis Vuitton under your eyes.’ 

‘I’ve got youth on my side. Lou says I’ve got very elastic skin.’

‘ _Elastic_ ,’ says Nick, drawing the word out, his voice like warm toffee. ‘Yeah, I’d go with that.’ 

Before the hot, liquid feeling in Harry’s belly can spread any further, Nick’s off again. ‘So how come you’re up so early? I thought teenagers were supposed to sleep twelve hours a day.’

‘I’ll nap later,' Harry yawns. 'Is that you worrying about me, Grimshaw?’

‘No,’ Nick flips back a touch too fast. _Uncool_ , thinks Harry gleefully. ‘I just want to know if I’m hitting my target demographic.’

‘You’re hitting it, mate,’ reassures Harry. 

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘What are you up to now?’

‘Hmm. I’ll go back in the studio and watch Finchy tidy up, then we’ve got our monthly meeting with Andy. Then I’m seeing Sanj for lunch.’

‘Say hello from me.’ Harry had liked Sanjay when he met him – he’s one of Nick’s normal (i.e. not-famous) friends from uni. ‘Then what?’ 

He loves to hear about Nick’s days, even the dull ones. He loves to hear Nick talk about anything. 

‘Then I’m probably going to do a bit of shopping.’

‘Boring shopping or fun shopping?’

‘Boring. Waitrose. Then I’ll go home and sleep, in case you’re interested, nosy. What are you doing?’

‘Sleep. Soundcheck. Food. Gig. You know.’

‘ _Gig_ ,’ scoffs Nick. ‘And where are you playing tonight? Leeds Student Union? Leicester Working Men’s Club? Oh no, wait. That’s right. You’re only gigging at the...’

‘... _Glasgow Exhibition Centre_.’

They both chorus the last bit and end up sniggering together.

‘I miss you,’ Harry says suddenly, because he can’t help it. He never can.

‘Hey,’ says Nick, his voice softening. ‘None of that.’

‘Sorry. I do though.’

‘I don’t blame you. I’m very miss-able.’ Now Harry can hear the smile in Nick’s voice. 

‘And you miss me an’ all, don’t you?’

‘I barely think about you. I hardly even know who you are. I just found your number in my phone. Don’t know who put it there.’

‘Now who’s a rubbish liar?’ Harry’s fully grinning now. The swell of his cheek is threatening to unbalance the phone so he grabs it and starts to sit up. ‘We’ll be back in London in a couple of weeks anyway.’

‘Will you? I really wouldn’t know. It’s not as if I’ve got One Direction’s tour schedule pinned to my bedroom wall or anything.’

‘Memorised, more like.’ Harry settles back against the cushions, pulling the duvet up around his waist.

They go on like this for another ten minutes before Nick’s got to go. They’re perfectly capable of doing it for hours, and have done, usually at night, in the wee hours. Then it’s proper conversations though, about music, about their jobs, about what they want, and gossip about mates, as well as, now and then, phone sex. Harry’s always slightly blown away by Nick’s ability to take him straight to an orgasm in three minutes flat using just his voice, but then why should he be surprised? The guy talks for a living.

He slides his phone back onto the bedside shelf, dropping the ear-buds on top, then climbs back under the duvet and shuts his eyes. He can hear the sounds of the bus waking up around him, Louis and Liam in the kitchenette, probably unpicking last night’s concert ( _gig_ , Nick’s voice laughs in his head, then is gone), Niall singing somewhere else, maybe in the shower. No Zayn though. Zayn’s probably still dead asleep, lucky bastard. 

Harry drifts off again. They might talk again later, but if not, Harry has tomorrow morning’s show, and London. He doesn’t dare think about later in the tour, when it’ll be months that separate them rather than weeks. _London in two weeks_ , he thinks. He can manage that for now.


End file.
